Staring into Space: Not Worth the Stigma

illustration by Free Pik

by Craig Bennett*

In our culture, staring into space while doing absolutely nothing is one of the greatest offenses against that culture itself. After all, we should be producing. Or engaging in some kind of self-improvement: working out at the gym; taking a course in yoga, meditation, French, or Italian; experimenting in the kitchen with recipes from our gourmet cookbook. Something other than the cardinal sin of contemporary American society—doing nothing. But believe it or not, there are some people who are actually working while they are sitting quietly, staring into space and doing nothing.

These people are artists. They may be writers, poets, painters, sculptors, composers of music, or something else of the sort; but these people are the creative ones among us. People who are not of that type most likely have no idea how much just plain thinking goes into the creation of a poem, a song, a painting, or novel. No more idea than a playwright or a choreographer of the dance would have of what it takes to spend day after day, week after week, year after year operating a drill press or processing other people’s insurance claims without going bananas. As a former colleague often put it, it all depends on how your brain is wired.

And if your brain is wired so that your consuming interest is creating some form of art, you’re doomed. Doomed to exist somewhere along the margins of society. Doomed to be driven nearly mad by the mundane, largely meaningless, and stultifyingly boring tasks that society offers as “jobs,” without which it’s difficult to keep a roof over your head, food in your belly, and clothes on your back. And doomed to be in constant inward conflict with the whole system of values on which that society is based.

But producing a genuinely worth-while piece of art is not a whole lot different from making a tasty and satisfying batch of stew (which I myself happen to enjoy both making and eating). You slice the meat and vegetables, prepare the broth, throw in the spices, and dump the whole business into a pot. But you don’t just heat it up and eat it; you let it simmer for an hour or two. That way, the ingredients will be cooked to a pleasing degree of tenderness, the broth will have thickened, and—most importantly—the various flavors will have been able to blend together into a stew rather than just a pot full of meat, vegetables, and broth. And that is accomplished by letting the pot just sit there for a while and do nothing (except perhaps to get stirred a little now and then).

I am more familiar with the lives and habits of novelists and composers than I am with those of painters and sculptors; but I know that as a general rule, each of them, regardless the medium in which he worked, had a “studio” set apart from his main residence where he could work undisturbed… or just sit quietly and stare into space while he thought.

John Steinbeck, after being named the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962, received numerous letters and telegrams of congratulation from friends and associates; and he spent a good deal of time responding to them with sincere thanks for their good wishes. In many of the letters to close friends, he shared a little more of his private thoughts about the award than he did with those who knew him less well. In a letter to one of his better friends and more frequent correspondents, he indicated some concern over the prize in terms of its apparent effect on many previous recipients. It frequently seemed to mark the beginning of the decline in a writer’s powers of creation, or even the end of a career. After all, the Nobel was the summit of the mountain. Once you’ve reached that, where else is there to go except down?

“I’ve got some work—quite a lot yet—to do,” he wrote to Carlton A. Sheffield, “and even more sit-and-stare-into-space to do…” And that’s one of America’s finest writers after having won the Nobel Prize for Literature. It’s a lonely business, especially for writers. Sometimes they find some kindred souls with whom they can enjoy occasional companionship and even share some of their work-in-progress. I’m reminded of the Inklings, a group of writers that included J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. But they were nearly all Oxford dons who were present on the same campus day-after-day. It’s hardly surprising that they became friendly enough to form a small group that met regularly to encourage one another’s creative efforts. The young man or woman who is slowly gestating the Great American Novel in his or her imagination is probably not so fortunate. He is more than likely spending the bulk of his waking hours at some lamentably un-creative job just to pay the bills.

So the next time you see someone, especially a young person, appearing to stare into space and do nothing, try not to be too hard on him. You just might be looking at a budding John Steinbeck, Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner, or Robert Frost.

*Craig H. Bennett, author of Nights on the Mountain and More Things in Heaven and Earth, available at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and most book stores

SOURCE: Steinbeck a Life in Letters. New York: Viking Press pg. 704

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